Katzenjammer
by PurpleCarpetsAgainstViolence
Summary: Dean gets clawed by a cat. Sam tries to patch him up. The cat tries to bite Dean some more. Written for i-speak-tongue's comment fic meme on LJ. Prompt: Dean does something ridiculously dangerous...to save a kitten.


Shalalala, I don't need to study, comment fic is way more important than my future.

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In his defense, it didn't start out as quite the ridiculous suicide mission it turned out to be. Contrary to popular believe, Dean isn't wrapped so tight inside his martyr complex that he'll try and throw his life away just for the hell of it.

No, it started real small, but the stupid cat just kept running so Dean had to keep chasing it and yes, he totally realizes how it's beyond stupid to get into a pissing contest with a fur ball. But hey, the sucker started it.

"Ow!" Dean whines when Sam swipes the whiskey drenched cloth over the four bleeding scratches that are marring the left side of his face. Only four scratches, you ask? Well, you see the little kitty's fifth claw didn't get a chance to bury itself in Dean's face thanks to the fact that it had already broken off somewhere inside his right palm.

Sam huffs something that sounds like "shut up" under his breath and gets out the butterfly tapes. The kid is still pissed. Thinks Dean deliberately risked his life for a pet. Which he sort of did.

"Dude, that _hurts_," Dean gripes. The sting of the alcohol more annoying than actually painful, but whatever.

"Well, suck it up. You wouldn't have gotten mauled in the first place, if you hadn't scared the thing out of its mind, chasing it across three rooftops."

Dean feels himself crumble under the force of his brother's almighty bitch face. It's not like Sammy doesn't have a point, but still. Dean wouldn't have had to chase the stupid cat, if it'd just come to him when he called for it.

"He should'a just come to me when I called him," Dean grumbles and Sam basically explodes with the mother of all huffs.

"It's a cat, Dean. Not one of Bobby's dogs. You can't expect it to jump into your arms, just because you called its name."

"Okay, well he shouldn't have climbed out that stupid window, then."

"Dean," Sam has this way of saying his name. Like he's talking to a mentally challenged, possibly unstable five-year old. "Imagine you're that cat."

"He's got a name."

"Okay," Sam concedes while trying to get a look at the claw that is still buried somewhere inside the older hunter's palm. "So imagine you're Otis. A crazy witch has been drinking your blood for the last couple days. You finally escape and suddenly a yelling, slime-covered giant comes steamrolling after you. You telling me you don't climb out that window?"

"Maybe I would," Dean allows, wiggling his hand out of his brother's grip. "But I wouldn't run all the way across the roof and I definitely wouldn't make the crazy jump onto the next house."

"Yeah," Sam snatches Dean's wrist in a bruising grip. "Except that you did."

Dean doesn't really have an answer to that, so he focuses on trying to get his hand free again. Sam pulls his hand back towards himself and okay, so maybe his little brother isn't a gangly teenager anymore and maybe he can pin Dean's wrist on the bed and start rooting around inside his palm for the stupid cat's claw.

"You're a freakin' butcher, Sammy, you know that?" Dean snaps once the claw is out and his hand is throbbing ten times worse than before.

Before Sam can snap back, the mattress shifts and a small furry head smashes itself against Dean's thigh.

Oh, now the thing comes up to him. Now, after he's already filleted Dean's face and arms and hands, he thinks it's suddenly appropriate to come on to him like a five dollar whore. Well, he can just fuck off right now.

"You know no one would have said anything if you'd just given up after the second roof, right?" Sam asks softly, rolling up his brother's sleeves to take care of the scratches that are covering his forearms.

Yeah, right. No one would have said anything, except Dean promised that little girl that he was gonna get Otis back for her and who knows if the stupid cat would have ever found its way back home from all the way across town and anyway, it wasn't about saving the cat or risking his life for a little kid's pet. It was about that sucker thinking he could outrun Dean and Dean Winchester doesn't turn down a challenge. That's all there is to it.

"Ow!" he whines again when Sam starts torturing him with his sewing skills.

Otis does that thing again where he rubs himself against Dean's leg. Dean likes to think it's a sort of cat apology and Sam is still focusing on cleaning out the scratches, so for a quick moment he allows himself to let his bandaged hand ghost over the soft fur. The small motion elicits a loud and content purr and Dean has to put all his left over anger into his glare to keep Sam from making whatever comment seems to be on the tip of his tongue.

Which is good. It's also good that Sam decides to ignore the fact that Dean doesn't complain again about his ministrations, even when the whiskey cloth makes a reappearance, as long as one of his hands can stay curled in the cat's soft neck.

The next morning, Sam finds Dean nursing a nasty bite wound on the back of his hand.

"He bit you?" Sam exclaims in wonder, hurrying over to take a closer look at the bleeding punctures. He figured the two of them settled their differences sometime between sharing a slice of left over pizza and sleeping in the same bed.

"Nah," Dean breathes past the lump in his throat when his brother gets the whiskey out of his duffel again.

"He didn't bite you?"

"Well, no he did," Dean admits sullenly. "But it was my fault. I rolled over and I think I scared him, so he lashed out."

Sam's bark of a laugh echoes around the small kitchen area of their room.

"That cat and you?" he giggles, barely holding on to the bottle in his hand. "You're totally the battered girlfriend in that relationship."

Dean glares but doesn't really come up with any snark to deny the accusation.

By the time they pull up at the Otis' owners' house, Dean has three newly bandaged scratches across his face and a purring cat in his lap and Sam is seriously worried that he'll have to prevent some kind of violent tug o' war between his brother and a ten-year old girl with a howling cat in the middle.


End file.
